Balloon-borne Observations of the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background

宇宙微波背景辐射（CMBR）是早期宇宙遗留下来的遗迹，它起源于我们所生活的宇宙创造的“大爆炸”。宇宙微波背景辐射在天空中亮度的变化带有宇宙诞生30万年后物质分布的印记，而宇宙微波背景辐射的线性偏振可以提供更早时期的信息，也就是宇宙诞生后的几分之一秒。该合同为正在进行的对1998- 1999年南极长时间气球飞行获得的CMBR数据的分析提供支持，为早期有效载荷的改进开发以测量极化，并为另一次南极飞行提供支持。从事这项工作的研究团队可能是世界上该领域的领先团队。

The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) is a relic left over from the early universe and it has its origin in the "big bang" in which the universe that we live in was created. The variations in brightness on the sky of the CMBR carry the imprint of the distribution of matter about 300,000 years after creation and the linear polarization of the CMBR can provide information from even earlier times, just a fraction of a second after creation. This award provides support for the on-going analysis of CMBR data obtained by an Antarctic long-duration balloon flight in 1998-99, for the development of modifications for the earlier payload to measure polarization and for another Antarctic flight. The research team doing this work is probably the leading group in the world for the field.